Back Then
by frenchy665
Summary: Hogwarts, 1937 - Jess Hart is a muggle-born placed in pure-blood Slytherin. Dom Fawley has never been considered smart but somehow got placed into Ravenclaw. Will Foster has social anxiety but is placed in Hufflepuff. And Sophia Selwyn's whole family has been placed in Gryffindor - except for her, who somehow lands herself in Slytherin, right next to Tom Riddle.
1. Chapter 1

**Eh I'm sorry, not my best work. Leave a review please :)**

**SOPHIA**

_London, 1937_

It was 10:55, 1st of September. Platform 9 3/4 was exactly how Sophia Selwyn remembered it from last year, when she had waved goodbye to her older brother Geordie as he went off to second-year at Hogwarts. She could remember that whole summer of last year, as he told her all the stories of Hogwarts - the secret passages, the Quidditch matches, and the people: the brainy Ravenclaws, the friendly Hufflepuffs, the terrible Slytherins, and, of course, the fabulous Gryffindors. But that had all been last summer. This summer, Geordie had been different: shut up in his room all summer, barely saying a word to anyone.

He stood next to her now, tall and thirteen. He didn't say anything.

They stood on the steam-filled platform, a few metres away from the scarlet steam engine that Sophia had been waiting and waiting to embark on. And now, finally, she would be able to go.

Mrs Selwyn breathed deeply. Sophia knew she would have a hard time being alone in the house.

"Come here, Sophia," her mother said, and wrapped her daughter in a big hug. She exhaled shakily. "I'm going to miss you," she whispered. "Make sure you're put in Gryffindor."

"What if I'm not?" Sophia whispered.

"You will. Don't worry," her mother said, and pulled Sophia out of their hug. She stared into her daughters' eyes, gripping her by the shoulders. "You'll make your dad proud."

Sophia smiled weakly.

"Now, you'd best get on the train - get your stuff - do you need any help?" Mrs Selwyn asked, busying herself with her daughters luggage.

"No, mum, its' fine," Sophia said.

"Right. Well, goodbye - where's Geordie? Oh, well. When you find him, tell him I said goodbye."

Sophia smiled. "Okay. I love you, mum."

"Love you too, Soph. Now get on the train!"

Sophia grinned and jumped onto the train, holding her trunk as it pulled out from the station. She walked into the nearest carriage, which was thankfully empty, and watched as the station shrunk into the distance. She could still see her mother's teary face. Sophia was very nervous herself about starting Hogwarts this year, but sometimes she felt annoyed with her mother's protectiveness. But she knew that her mum would miss her, and Sophia would be lying if she said she wasn't going to miss her mum too. She sighed. There was nothing she could do about it now. She put her trunk on the platform jutting out above her head, and opened her travel bag to get out her potions textbook, which she began reading avidly.

Twelve chapters later, and Sophia looked up to see that the sky had become a deep purple, scattered with the beginnings of stars. The landscape outside had become much more rugged, with sharp mountains to the right; large, dark forests to the left; and in between, a wide moor, giving way to the view of the sky. She realised, with a jolt, that she was still in her Muggle clothes. She pulled the blinds across and quickly changed into her robes. She finished, opened the blinds, and sat back down to finish her book, but with a quick glance outside, Sophia knew that she wouldn't be able to get back to her book. Because she had seen, for the first time, Hogwarts.

It looked pure and magical, illuminated against the dark by hundred of thousands of glowing candles burning bright inside the castle. The lake shone black below the massive piece of stonework, and to the left of the castle, a massive, dark forest loomed. Any fear she had about going here melted away as she saw Hogwarts Castle.

The train pulled to a stop, and Sophia quickly cleaned up her compartment, leaving her trunk and travel bag in the train for the house elves to bring up to her room. She stepped into the corridor, and was shuffled along with a bunch of fourth-years outside. As she stepped out of the train, the cold hit her like a truck and she shivered violently.

"First years over here! First years!" Yelled a voice. Sophia looked around and saw the source: a small woman, as old as her grandmother and twice as frail. She shuffled over to her, with at least 100 other first years.

The old woman told them to follow her, so they did. She directed them to the boats - "No more than four to a boat," she rasped. Sophia sat in the closest boat, pressing her knees to her chest against the cold. Three other first-years sat in the boat with her. She glanced at them but didn't say anything.

One of them was a thin, pale boy, with shoulder-length black hair who looked rather nice. Another was a girl with deep red hair, blue eyes and a pouty mouth. The other was a small boy with wide, scared eyes with sandy-blonde hair. None of them said anything for the whole boat ride.

They exited the boats, and the man - who was called Hagrid, as Sophia found out - lead them up what seemed like ten kilometres of stairs, before reached a big, wooden door. This was the door that lead into Hogwarts, Sophia reminded herself. She could feel her heart racing at the very thought.

The door opened, and a tall, dark-skinned woman was on the other side. "Come," she said to the first years, and lead them into the Entrance Hall.`

"As new members to the Hogwarts community, you may or may not be aware that in Hogwarts, every student has a House. There are four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each House is equal, with many diverse talents, and strengths. Your House will be like your family - good behaviour will earn you points for your house, bad behaviour will lose points, and earn you a detention."

_Gryffindor, Gryffindor,_ Sophia prayed.

"The Sorting Hat will choose your House," the woman said. "Now, if you will all come through with me to the Great Hall."

She turned around, and with a dramatic wave of her wand, the massive doors in front of the first years opened.

A sea of heads turned towards the teacher and the cowering students behind her. The woman took no notice and strode down the centre of the room, as if she was used to all eyes being on her. As a matter of fact, it was likely that she was - she had a sort of magnetically head-turning aura that hung about her. The first years followed, shivering, in her wake. Sophia stumbled behind a girl with long platinum-blonde hair. She could feel the eyes on her and the other first years now that the teacher was passed. The stunningly large room seemed filled with whispers. To distract herself, she craned her neck up at the ceiling, and gasped in delight. Behind the mass of floating candles was a breathtaking view of the night sky, the galaxy creating a sea of stars on the blackness of space.

There was a screech of wood on stone, and Sophia looked down again to see the teacher dragging a three-legged stool to the centre of the room. On top of the stool was a ragged hat.

"When I read your name, please sit on the stool and place the Hat on your head!" The dark-skinned woman at the front said. "Mary Adamson!"

A brown-haired girl ran up to the stool and jammed the hat on her head eagerly.

"Hufflepuff!" The Hat called through a rip in it's brim.

Sophia jumped. The Hat could _talk?_

_Of course it could_, a voice in her head reminded her. _This is Hogwarts. Anything is possible. _

The crowd around her thinned.

"Liana de Belleme!"

The platinum-haired girl who'd stood in front of Sophia earlier as they walked through the Hall walked up to the Sorting Hat and put it on her head, gracefully. Facing Sophia, she could see that Liana was stunningly beautiful.

"Slytherin!" The Hat shouted.'

Ew. A _Slytherin. _Sophia would not be talking to _her _in the future.

"William Foster!"

The blond-haired boy who had sat in the same boat as Sophia stumbled forward and clumsily stuck the Hat on his head. The Hat took a little bit of time to decide before announcing, "Hufflepuff!"

The boy, his hands shaking, took the hat off his head and placed it back on the stool before sitting at the Hufflepuff table, next to Mary Adamson, who greeted him with a smile that he didn't return.

"Dominique Fawley!"

The girl with dark-red hair who had sat in the same boat as Sophia and Will strode up to the Hat and placed it on her head. She sat on the stool, legs crossed, an impatient expression on her face as the Hat took its time to decide.

Finally, a loud "Ravenclaw!" erupted from its mouth. Dominique looked outraged, but walked over to the Ravenclaw table, where she ignored the other blue-and-bronze clad students and sulked.

"Jesse Hart!"

The third kid who had been in the boat with Sophia went up to be Sorted. Once again, the Hat took its time to decide, before announcing, "Slytherin!"

Jesse stood up and walked over to the Slytherin table, where he sat with Liana.

Many more names were read. Sophia stood next to a dark-haired boy with a nonchalant expression, waiting for her name to be called.

"Tom Riddle!"

The boy next to her walked up to the Sorting Hat. As soon as he touched it, without it even having to be placed on the boy's head, the Sorting Hat yelled, "Slytherin!"

He put the Hat down, and walked to the Slytherin table, where some older students congratulated him.

Sophia looked at the boy - Tom - warily. She had never heard of the Sorting Hat doing something like that before.

"Sophia Selwyn!"'

Sophia walked up to the stool, where she put the Hat on her head. She looked across the room and saw Geordie, his gaze focused on her.

"Ah, Miss Selwyn," a voice whispered into her head.

_Hello, _she thought.

A chuckle. "Yes, hello indeed," it whispered. "You know, your brother was in Gryffindor. Your parents were all in Gryffindor. Your grandparents were all in Gryffindor ..."

_Yes, _Sophia thought. _Put me in Gryffindor, with them. _

"... But I sense, at heart, that you are not a true Gryffindor."

_No! I am! _

"So what other house?"

_Not Slytherin ... Anything but Slytherin ..._

"Are you sure? Not Slytherin?"

_Yes, I'm sure! Not Slytherin!_

"But ... I can see ... in your heart ..."

_Not Slytherin! Not Slytherin!_

"That you are a true Slytherin."

_No!_

"Yes," the voice hissed. "You would be doing your house a great disservice if you were not placed with them. You are of no use in Gryffindor, nor Hufflepuff, nor Ravenclaw ... so I see no other choice ..."

_No!_

"Slytherin!" The Hat yelled to the Great Hall. Sophia opened her eyes and met her brothers stone-cold gaze, which flicked away in disappointment as he looked at her.

She wanted to scream. She was supposed to be in Gryffindor! But slowly, she took the Hat off her head, and walked to where Tom Riddle sat at the Slytherin table.

"Well done," a Slytherin prefect nearby said to her.

She didn't respond. The roar in her ears was too loud.

She turned her head to see the other side of the Hall, where she looked up and down the Gryffindor table for Geordie. With a jolt, she saw him, staring at her, with his deep grey eyes looking resentful. She felt a pang of pain in her heart, and turned back to her food, which lay, untouched, on her plate.


	2. Chapter 2

**I hope you enjoy! I do not own any part of the Wizarding World. Please leave a review! :)**

* * *

**DOM**

Ravenclaw. Goddamn _Ravenclaw. _That Sorting Hat is going to pay for putting me in such a house.

I sit on the edge of the bench, next to some girl named Mona who's got thick-framed glasses and a massive overbite, and keeps rattling on about how her parents were in this house and how they had always told her that they just _knew _that there was something special about her - that they just _knew _that she would end up in Ravenclaw. I couldn't care less. I sit and watch all the other people being sorted into Slytherin, where I should e: Ophelia McKinnon. Reginald Cann. That girl in my boat, Sophia Selwyn. And a boy, Tom Riddle, who seems ... different. In a good, magnetic way. He doesn't seem like the usual Slytherin boys around.

"And my wand is made of vine wood, which means I'm likely to be a very high achiever -"

"Mona, _shut up!"_ I shout, and with a flick of my wrist, Mona's mouth had been superglued shut.

"Miss Fawley!" roars the Prefect nearest to me - Michael Jones Junior or something. He spins Mona around, and mutters the counter charm, and her mouth begins to function normally again.

Mona turns to me, beaming. "So _that's _why you're in Ravenclaw!"

I'm confused. "What?" I'm not supposed to be in Ravenclaw. I'm supposed to be in Slytherin. It should be _me _sitting there in green and silver. There is _no_ reason why I should be in Ravenclaw.

"You haven't done any classes ... but you managed to shut my mouth without even saying the charm!" Mona shouts excitedly.

"And I'll do it again if you don't shut up," I say.

Mona's eyes widen and she returns to her food. Michael Jones Junior glares at me.

"Miss Fawley, we can't have you threatening other students - especially not fellow Ravenclaws!"

I roll my eyes, and look down at my full plate. I continue to pick at my food.

"I'll let you off just this once, Fawley, because it's your first day. But next time ..." Michael shakes his head. I tune him out. God, do Ravenclaws ever stop talking?

The answer to that question is no, apparently. There is a constant chatter of stuff that only complete nerds can relate too, about his year's spellbooks, and the correct wand position for casting the charm to make teaspoons fly. Why anyone would want to make a teaspoon fly is beyond me, but I can hardly be bothered to join in the conversation and ask.

The night wears on, and on, punctuated with unending chatter, not just from the Ravenclaws but from all Houses. Was it only my family who ate dinner in silence?

I look up once or twice to examine the people who I will have to share a House with for the next seven years. There is Mona, obviously, with a face full of freckles, an overbite, thick glasses over frog-green eyes and dark hair twisted into two short, thick plaits. Then there is another girl, Daisy Johansen, with curly blonde hair that sticks up everywhere, pale blue eyes and a thin snub of a nose. Alma Reid sits next to her, with her shiny black hair falling in a sheen down her back. She sits and chews slowly, eyes on her plate, not saying a word. And Ophelia James, with stringy brown hair and green-blue eyes in a too-thin face. Those are just the girls, who I suppose I have to share a room with. The boys aren't much better: Johnny Tucker sits with his knees curled up near his chest, too-big eyes watching us all warily, not touching his food. He's miniature, and could probably pass for about eight. Next to him sits Will Lynon, who has blonde hair, glasses, and an eternally runny nose which he sniffs every five seconds. Next to him is Edgar Willemson, who has chocolate-brown hair and a massive nose. There's one other boy, Joey Lee, who has dark hair and dark eyes like Edgar, but with bushy eyebrows and an overbite that could almost be worse than Mona's.

And that's it. That's all the first-year Ravenclaws. I guess I have to learn to live with them for the next seven years.

But there's one boy. He's not in first-year, I don't know his name. He's sitting next to Edgar, across from Michael Jones Junior, the Ravenclaw prefect, and he keeps looking over here. At me.

* * *

We get up after the meal, and Michael Jones Junior directs the whole of Ravenclaw House out the doors of the Great Hall and through an endless maze of twists and turns through staircases and secret passages. My legs begin to hurt as we shuffle into the bottom of a tower, where a staircase spirals up against the wall, higher and higher until I can't even see the top. Michael Jones Junior tells us to start walking, and so we do. We walk for a forever, sometimes stopping for a breather every now and then. I realise we're in one of the gigantic spiraling towers visible from the outside of Hogwarts. There are windows in here, broad and tall and arching over me, with square panes bigger than my hands. I stop for a few seconds in front of one, and stare out at how magnificent the view is.

The sky is dark now, and this far away from the city, the entire galaxy is in view, an explosion of stars lighting up the sky, coloring it white and purple and blue with distant stars sprinkled through it, shining pure and bright. But the brightest thing in the sky is the moon, which hangs, swollen and full, in the middle of the sky, shedding its milky light on the earth below; illuminating the acres and acres of empty fields and plains and moors, its beams protruding through the leafy darkness of thick forests, shining on the tops of distant Scottish mountains, sprinkling light on the Lake.

Maybe, with a view like this, I won't mind being a Hogwarts so much.

* * *

We reach the Ravenclaw first-year girls' dormitories at long last, with our trunks having been magically transported to our beds. They gave me the end bed, with my initials D.F. engraved in silver on the front of my trunk that lies at the foot of the bed. Silver, the second colour of Slytherin. Slytherin, the house I should have been in. My robes will probably have already been magically turned blue and bronze, or whatever the Ravenclaw House colours are.

My heart sinks, as I remember I have to tell my parents the results of the sorting. What will they think of me? Will they disown me, cal me a blood traitor for daring to be in a House other than Slytherin? Or will they realise that I never wanted to be put in here, and write an owl to the school, saying that it must be a mistake, and I should be transferred to Slytherin at once?

My heart sinks even lower as I remember that the first classes of the year start tomorrow. And I will be taking part in them as a Ravenclaw.

I remember all the excitement I had over the summer, so excited to finally be going to Hogwarts, to learn magic, to meet other pure-blood families. I was sure, so sure that I would be put in Slytherin. And look where I am now. Filthy Ravenclaw.

I close my eyes and exhale deeply. I stagger onto my bed, where I lay sprawled, but still, as I listen to the other four girls murmuring as they get ready for bed. I try to not focus on the bleak reality that I really am in Ravenclaw, and that this isn't just some bad dream.

Eventually, a few minutes after their chattering has turned into soft sleep-sounds, I get up from my bed and open my trunk quietly. I rummage around for my pyjamas, and pull them on silently. The moon has moved west over the sky, and now it shines directly through the window, falling onto the floor in my room. I stare at the breathtaking view a while longer, before crawling slowly into bed, pulling the curtains around me.

As I lay there, I let the Ravenclaw reality sink in.

Damn it. God damn it. It's real. It's true. I'm a bloody Ravenclaw, and there's nothing I can do.

I am Dominique Elizabeth Fawley, daughter of two Slytherin parents, who were the children of two Slytherin parents. To be in Slytherin is my birth right. I am not a Ravenclaw.

And yet, I am in Ravenclaw.

I let a single tear fall.


End file.
